A few weeks ago,
I underwent a special EEG test called a visual
evoked potential (VEP). This test
is designed to measure irregularities in cortical processing of visual stimuli.
It is often used to help evaluate whether multiple sclerosis (MS) is a
suspected diagnosis for abnormal visual and neurological symptoms. A cluster of
EEG nodes are attached to precise locations on the back of the skull to measure
the transference speed of voltages traveling from the occipital cortex while
the subject’s vision is stimulated by the shifting inversion of a graphic pattern.
As I sat there
staring at an old CRT monitor with a checkerboard pattern that center-terminated
in a single red dot, I ruminated on the data filtering process of the
technology that was about to measure my brain waves on the nano-volt level. I
began wondering what capacities it might possess if the noise filtration were
tuned to track the subtlest variations of thought, emotion, and sense. With
ever increasing data filtration sets, we could soon use our brains to control a
vast number of interactive and emotive technologies. Our emerging technologies,
while vast and increasingly impressive, are lacking in creativity of application and
humanity of scope. Once we can overcome hurdles of isolated focus, I expect
that the data sets and filtration algorithms will advance at a dizzying pace.
I was reminded
of that experience while reading through Twitter, Facebook, and blog feeds over
coffee yesterday morning when I came across an article about the new ZeroN
levitating interaction element on the Blind Giant blog of author Nick Harkaway. Harkaway
makes an interesting statement about the direction of emergent technology and how
“data is simply the world around us represented by a machine.” It strikes me,
that all these interactive and wave-analysis technologies, once properly
attenuated to the task, will give us an even broader understanding of data.
Perhaps even a better understanding of what being “human” means.
Once I get rattling
down this cyber-existential railroad, I cannot help but think of Heiddeger’s
essay “The Question Concerning Technology.” Every time I read this essay or
attempt to teach it to students or share it with friends, I find myself plagued
with thoughts that paint technology as a kind of bacterial parasite that decided
to infect lower reptilian and mammalian critters to birth humans;
and beyond that, eventually birth machines. Machination, automation, and the
trend towards a digital reality coup d’état of the analog, in this light, seems
like some poetic manifestation nature had planned all along.
On that note, I
will leave you with a quote by George Dyson, author of Darwin Among the Machines: The Evolution of Global Intelligence,
which incoherently leaves me both terrified and awe-filled at the prospects of
the future: “In the game of life and evolution there are three
players at the table: human beings, nature, and machines. I am firmly on the
side of nature. But nature, I suspect, is on the side of the machines.”
No comments:
Post a Comment